


A Second Gift

by MercySewerPyro



Series: A Thousand Painted Teeth [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Force-Sensitive Scorch, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Link, Pre-Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24138754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercySewerPyro/pseuds/MercySewerPyro
Summary: The clones have already gained one inheritance, but it isn't always enough to save each other from the gazes of their creators. Still, they lose some of their number to reconditioning. It's always been a burden they just have to bear.This is about to change.
Relationships: RC-1262 | Delta-62 | Scorch & RC-1207 | Delta-07 | Sev
Series: A Thousand Painted Teeth [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728298
Comments: 10
Kudos: 114





	A Second Gift

When the thing inside them woke up, this connection between them, the clone troopers had done their best to adapt. That was what they had been bred for, after all: adapting, thinking both on their feet and for the long term, to use what they could. They had been given a rare gift; the natborns  _ forgot, _ and all two hundred thousand troopers vowed that what they had found within themselves would be theirs alone, a shield and a sword against those who would harm them. To give it up would be to betray the whole.

But that hadn’t made it easy. Two hundred thousand clamouring minds, and at the beginning none yet knew how to draw curtains around themselves, to not spill out everything they thought into this newborn thing. For some, it had been overwhelming.

For some, it would be enough for the natborns to notice.

Sacrifices would be made in those early days, each and every one grieved as their light winked out. It was worse, then; pain was not so easily cordoned off, and those left behind grew far too used to it. There was a lot of hurt in those days, shouldered together, and a lot of names whispered in the dead of night, recited one by one. But the secret was kept, and the whole was preserved. A few lives traded for thousands more.

But clones are adaptable, and clones are survivors; when one learned, haphazard yet determined, more were quick to pick it up, to pass it from brother to brother. Two hundred thousand minds were working on the same problem, and two hundred thousand were desperate and stubborn. Walls were built, tweaked, fine-tuned. It would never be difficult to press a message to a sibling - no, they would never even bother to block things out so fully - but together they fashioned themselves partitions, wove order out of chaos. The number of lost dropped like a stone.

Within a year, a clone could just as easily peel apart their defences as rebuild them, or shield themselves from others while only opening their minds to one or two. Medics sunk into their patients’ pain to find out the problem, troopers warned each other of inspections and threats to ‘defective’ siblings, and squads that were once rather disorganized came to move like a single jaw of serrated, painted teeth. Desperation had turned their link into the weapon they needed it to be, wielded with skill.

It was proven here too, that this was not something only inherited by clones old enough to think. New lights would appear in time, a discovery full of relief and joy; for a long moment, it had seemed they would be the only generations with this gift. Those still not decanted, still too young to learn, had not been sparks in their siblings’ great web. But as they grew, that changed: understanding came with a spark inside them, billowing up, only to be surrounded by the elation of their peers.

Suddenly, the clones had a legacy to pass on, a thing to teach. Their younger siblings would learn how to weave their shields, how to press mind against mind, to speak with each other across unimaginable distances- Distances that would only prove to be larger, once troopers were scattered all across the galaxy.

For the clones, that would have been enough. This was already a gift unlike anything they had ever been given, the first thing to truly call theirs. How could they have asked for anything more, when the lives of the natborns were still a thing unreachable, and every day was balanced on the knife of their creators’ approval?

But there was power brimming in their veins, spilling through them like a river, like from a spring. And every spring needs an outlet, a place to bubble up from the dry earth. Every river pools somewhere.

Unlike the connection itself, it wouldn’t burst forth; no, it was there before it was even noticed, a thing mirroring the web it had arrived with so well that it lay unnoticed. It was simply part of those who were lucky enough, as if it had always been. But despite this, the  _ recognition _ of it would only come through the direst of circumstances. Where all else failed, they would rely on this second gift.

And they would need it, when even the Nulls couldn’t scare away a Kaminoan from the extermination of one of their own.

* * *

There had been no warning, no time to alert their siblings. One moment a squad of Commandos had been moving from class to class and passing jokes through the link, a game of trying not to laugh. This was chancing danger, a thrill despite the otherwise innocuous interaction; to draw the attention of their trained, the Cuy’val Dar Walon Vau, was dangerous. But despite him and his cruelty, it wouldn’t stop four children from playing their secret game.

A game that stuttered to a halt when a Kaminoan approached, dipping its head to the Mandalorian. And as the Kaminoan began to talk to their trainer, their voices too low and quiet to be heard by the Commandos, a pit of dread bloomed in Scorch’s stomach. He had a bad feeling about this, and lately those feelings had struck true, again and again.

He was proved horribly right when the  _ kaminii _ took 1207’s arm and pulled him forcefully out of formation, spilling his fear into the link in his wake. While the rest of the squad startled, 1138 -  _ Boss, _ Scorch had to remember he had a name now - moved forward to intercept, just like the leader he was- Only to be stopped by Vau’s arm and cold gaze.

The  _ kaminii _ only blinked in that slow, infuriatingly calm way, as if  _ vode _ coming to the defence of one of their own was an oddity. As if they hadn’t been bred for that exact same thing, for loyalty sharp and fierce. In the face of their anger, their fear, all it did was explain to them its reasoning, as if it was talking to idiots- And not four highly trained young Commandos. “This unit has been displaying unacceptable levels of aggressive behavior. We have let it go for this long, but it is harming the squad’s efficiency and must be removed.”

1207 stiffened, and the fear bled from him freely now. The reconditioning didn’t even need to be said - its threat was no longer needed when it was already in motion - and Scorch grit his teeth to hold back the protest that bubbled dangerously in his throat. 1207 was a pain in the  _ shebs, _ but he was  _ Delta’s _ pain in the shebs, and how  _ dare _ Vau just let this thing take him away from them.

But, perhaps he should have known this was coming. The link had fueled 07’s aggression in a new way, exposing the things that the regs suffered at the hands of their creators, tying them to their younger siblings in a way that ran deeper than blood. He’d come to their protection, acted out on their behalf. And he’d lashed out at Vau and his abuse, now that they had seen him in a different light, seen what their siblings thought of him. They’d had to call for the Nulls once before, hiding behind their ferocity. They’d been idiots to think that would be the end of it.

Scorch wondered, anger sharp and dangerous, if Walon Vau had set this up. If he’d figured out, not about the link, but to make sure the word of 07’s imminent reconditioning would never reach their ears before it was already upon them. That he’d handed 07 over to the  _ kaminii _ on a silver karking platter. It would be like him, just as vicious, just as petty.

He could feel Boss in the periphery, sending a panicked pulse to the Nulls. 1140 burning with his own, quiet worry, and 07’s terror and anger practically at boiling point. But Scorch knew the Nulls were too far - they were distant, sharp flares of flame on the other side of the city - and any stalling the regs could do was too dangerous. Even if Kote came, it wouldn’t be enough- And they couldn’t lose the Commander who’d brought the  _ vode _ together.

If anything was going to be done, if 1207 wasn’t going to be just another sacrifice, another name quietly murmured in the list of those they’d already lost… It would be all up to them, here and now.

...No, not them. In that moment, in that instant, Scorch knew it was up to  _ him. _

He couldn’t say what urged him onwards, to take a deep breath and step forward despite the pings of alarm from his squadmates. Boss even pressed an order, a sharp  _ ‘Scorch don’t _ _ , _ but Scorch held firm. He had to do this. The gazes of the Kaminoan and Vau fell to him, heavy and oppressive, but Scorch was never one for holding back. Leave the long-term thinking to his brothers; instinct had never failed him, and he  _ knew _ it wouldn’t fail him here.

“You can’t take him.”

  
  
“RC-1262-” The Kaminoan started, slow and scolding-

But Scorch would have none of it. Another intake of breath, and he put every single bit of himself into his words, his desperation, his determination. They would  _ not _ take his brother from him, and he would do anything to keep him safe. “You’re not taking him.”

For a moment, the silence was deafening. Scorch braced himself for a reprimand, for Vau’s hand to strike him. But it never came. Instead, slowly, placidly, the Kaminoan repeated him. “I am not taking him.” He could even hear Walon murmur it, almost too soft to hear.

  
  
Confusion from his siblings curled around him, but Scorch didn’t even stop to consider what was happening, what was being revealed here. There was too much at stake. He just had to keep going. “You will leave us  _ alone _ from now on.”

“I will leave you alone from now on.” Again, Vau repeating it softly.

...And just like that, it was finished. The Kaminoan let 07 go, and Scorch’s brother was quick to scramble back into formation. There was no sign either of the natborns had realized what had just happened, what Scorch had just done- Instead, the  _ kaminii _ turned away with its eerie grace, and Vau barked for them to keep moving. He could now feel the sheer awe and confusion from his brothers, and from  _ elsewhere _ too. There were other siblings who’d sensed it, passing on the word of this event.

Somewhere inside the link, he thought maybe he could hear a Null absolutely  _ cackling. _

_ ‘Scorch, what the fuck was that!?’ _

_ ‘I don’t know! I just- Did it!’ _

_‘You told it to go away and it just_ did!’

That was  _ absolutely _ a Null laughing their head off somewhere on the other side of Tipoca City, Scorch decided. Whichever one it was - Jaing, maybe? He didn’t know enough to tell the Nulls apart yet - he was proceeding to lose it even  _ more _ at picking up their frantic, not-quite-closed conversation.

He’d only gotten halfway through irritably pushing a question his way when the Null pressed an image back in return: a flash training lesson that said Null had certainly  _ not _ taken, detailing Jedi. Detailing the Force, and what they knew of its capabilities.

And exactly how they could press at a mind, how they could make someone do what they asked with just a suggestion.

Scorch nearly stumbled in shock, and he could feel his squadmates’ own at the revelation just as strongly. Force-sensitive. Scorch, of all people, was Force-sensitive. Something they’d thought of reserved only for the Jedi they would one day fight alongside, running in his veins.

_ ‘...There’s so much osik we can pull with that.’ _

__

Despite everything, close call and all, Scorch couldn’t help but laugh. Even if it caught Walon Vau’s eye, there was a realization all around him: there was now  _ another _ thing they could use against him and the rest of the natborns, another shield in the arsenal. He could feel 07’s grin, and he basked in his returning spark of joy. The danger was past. His brother was safe, and Scorch had been the one to save him.

And though he hid it inside himself, a singular hope replacing the fear that had wallowed deep in his gut, somehow Scorch knew that this was only the beginning. He was lucky, but he couldn’t - he  _ wouldn’t _ \- be the only one to realize such a thing about themselves, not when with it they could stop the  _ kaminii _ from touching any of them ever again. No, this would reappear in others.

  
Somehow, Scorch knew he was only the  _ first. _

**Author's Note:**

> Scorch is perhaps not the most conventional choice for Force-sensitivity, but My City Now.


End file.
